Speaking Silences: Stillness and Voice in Modern Thought and Jewish TraditionLanguage and silence have usually been understood as opposites and assigned different values, but which one is positive and which negative? When people equate silence with suppression or repression, they argue that it is through language that we discover meaning. Yet people who perceive deep wisdom in silence believe that words falsify experience. Ranging widely across time and languages, Andrew Vogel Ettin explores the ways in which various biblical and traditional works as well as modern and contemporary texts - Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and literary - treat the nature of silence and speech and the tension between them. He situates this tension at the heart of the creative process and argues that language and silence need each other and contribute to the power and meaning of one another. Critically examining the idea of a "Judeo-Christian" culture, Ettin shows how silence is imposed by a dominant culture on another culture and how the dominated culture - in this case Judaism - becomes excluded from the historical conversation about values and ideas. He also demonstrates the broader uses of both speech and silence as cultural weapons by the vulnerable or oppressed, who have no other means of defense or witness. We generally interpret silence as a void, but Ettin shows it to be a mode of communication that carries the potential for intense variety. The loss of a public voice has implications for both the dominant and the dominated culture. The author examines these implications in the following contexts: contemporary feminist attempts, especially within Judaism, to rectify the masculine language of worship and Godhead in order to end language-generated alienation; the situation of the Yiddish writer as exemplary of a writer in exile or a language that is marginalized; the Jewish impulse toward universalism, with its corresponding danger of loss of voice; and the values of silence and speech arising from the experiences of the Holocaust. In the process, he considers the implications for multicultural societies. Speaking Silences is a broadly interdisciplinary work that will appeal to scholars and readers interested in modern and contemporary literature, Jewish studies, religion and literature, and aesthetics. |
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Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Speaking of Silences | 13 |
A Sea of Ink | 29 |
Letters in Love with Letters | 48 |
The Silence of Potentiality 22 | 85 |
Compulsion for the Word | 103 |
Exiles from Their Words | 129 |
OneWay Conversations | 145 |
The Lead Plates of the Rom Press | 169 |
Notes | 187 |
| 201 | |
| 207 | |
Common terms and phrases
acknowledged actually allows appears articulated artist attempt become beginning believe biblical called centuries Christian claims command context continuing created creation creative cultural divine especially essential exile existence experience expresses fact feel given gives God's hear heard Hebrew holy human idea implies individual instance interpretation issues Jewish Jews Judaism known language learned least less letters linguistic literary live matter means merely mind Moses mute nature never noted observes one's particular perhaps phrase physical poem poet poetry political possible prayer presence question Rabbi recall relationship religious remains seems sense separate silence social sound speak speech spiritual spoken story suggests Talmud tell thought tion tongue Torah tradition translation truth turn understand universe verbal voice women words worship writing written Yiddish
Bibliographic information
| Title | Speaking Silences: Stillness and Voice in Modern Thought and Jewish Tradition |
| Author | Andrew V. Ettin |
| Publisher | University of Virginia Press, 1994 |
| ISBN | 0813915090, 9780813915098 |
| Length | 209 pages |
| Subjects | › Religion / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |